1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to umbrella type foldable tents and, more particularly, to an improved structure of such foldable tents for facilitating the pitching and the striking thereof.
2. Description of the Prior Art
With reference to FIG. 1, there is shown a conventional foldable tent which is disclosed in Korean Utility Model Publication No. 89-2477. The foldable tent is pitched or struck by extending or folding a plurality of pipe flames 1 connected to each other by a plurality of joints 2. When pitching the foldable tent, the user manually extends all the pipe frames 1 by strongly biasing the joints 2. However, as the tensile force of the cloth tent body becomes stronger in accordance with extending of the pipe frames 1, the user needs to exert all his strength when extending the last frame 1 or biasing the last joint 2. This makes the pitching of the foldable tent very difficult.
In order to facilitate the pitching of the above foldable tent, the pipe frames 1 are preferably made of an excellent flexible material. However, the above flexible material does not provide pipe frames with a good resilience, which frames should be used along with the foldable tent. That is, the pipe frames 1 made of the above flexible material do not achieve a desired stretch of the cloth tent body when the tent is in a pitched state. In addition, when striking the foldable tent, the user should bias the first joint while exerting all his strength exceed the tensile force of the tent body. This may cause breaking of the pipe frame 1 or of the joints 2.
Turning to FIG. 2, there is shown a conventional foldable tent which is disclosed in Korean Utility Model Publication No. 91-1106. When pitching this foldable tent, a center rope 3 is pulled down while gripping a center member 4 in the same manner as opening a conventional umbrella. Thus to move the center member 4 is moved upward until the top section of the member 4 is locked to a locking cap 6. When striking the tent, a release button 7 of the locking cap 6 is pushed so as to elastically separate the top section of the center member 4 from the locking cap 6.
In the above foldable dent of FIG. 2, a desired stretch of the pitched tent is achieved only when the foldable ribs 5 coupled to the center member 4 are nearly horizontally stretched, as shown at the dotted line of FIG. 2. In this case, the cloth tent body is provided with the maximum tensile force and achieves the desired stretch. However, in order to lock the center member 4 to the locking cap 6 when pitching the tent, the ribs 5 coupled to the center member 4 should pass over the desired horizontal position as shown at the solid line of FIG. 2. The cloth tent body is thus not provided with the desired tensile force even when fully pitched. In this regard, the foldable tent of FIG. 2 does not achieve the desired stretch of the cloth tent body when pitched. There is thus formed space between the tent body and the pipe frames. Since the cloth tent body does not have the desired stretch as described above, it will flutter in the wind. When pushing the release button 7 to strike the tent, the user should push or handle the button 7 with his hand fully stretched. However, the user can not exert all his strength with his hand fully stretched as described above so that the pitched tent should be provided with deficient stretch which allows the tent to be struck with the deficient user's strength caused by the fully stretched hand. Another problem of with the foldable tent of FIG. 2 resides in the fact in that the tent size must be limited so that the fully stretched user's hand can reach the locking cap 6 of the pitched tent in order to push or handle the release button 7.